1. Field
The present invention relates generally to the fields of biochemical molecule sensing method and apparatus, and more particularly to the fields of Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) biochemical molecule sensing system implemented by Complimentary Metal-Oxide Silicon (CMOS) technology.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional biochemical molecules (e.g., DNAs, proteins, bacteria, enzymes, viruses, etc.) sensing techniques commonly involve electrochemical sensing and optical sensing. However, electrochemical sensing is generally slow and has poor resolutions, while optical sensing is generally expensive and impractical because it requires elaborate imaging setups.
Attempts have been made in the past to employ electrical sensors to detect or sense biochemical molecules. Potentially, electrical sensing may be faster and cheaper than the electrochemical sensing and optical sensing because it does not require any chemical reaction to take place or any elaborate imaging setups. Nevertheless, electrical sensing has limited sensitivity and limited spatial resolution because the size of each electrical sensor is typically larger than 200×200 μm2.
Thus, there is a need for a low cost biochemical sensing system that can provide high speed and high resolution molecule sensing.